A note on the 'Stranger Things' finale: Was the show turned upside down?

Nine Marvel Movies, three Oscars ceremony and seventy episodes of the Simpsons, these are three of the many different content humanity has seen while thinking of the day Stranger Things season 5 will finally hit our screens, now that this day is behind us, was the wait worth it?

NO!!! Didn’t need to wait three and a half years to figure this one out. It was a long time to wait, Netflix has been teasing it for this much time, delivering fans regular teaser. It hit its climax point during Netflix's Tudum event on May the 31th 2025, where the release dates were announced. Thanksgiving, Christmas and new year day, ironically the most important days of the year, must share their excitement with what was waited for as a moment in television history. But even though the millions of viewers didn’t miss the call, success didn't quite follow.

In the first few days of 2026 after the final episode dropped, the popular opinions around the world were diverse. Some praised it, some grumbled, but the more professional critics were more one-sided, speaking of the final as too long and with a poor pacing. In my opinion, these critics perfectly emphasize the many problems of the finale. In the rest of the season image, the finale just can’t reach the level of entertainment and surprise we were waiting for. For instance the army present during the best part of the final has very confusing objectives to accomplish. They are mostly here to be the bad guys that makes it harder for the heroes without running for a goal of their own. As it is shown in their lazy written ending where they just LEAVE. No legal affair, no national sequel, no consequences on their enemy they just leave like they never even were here which makes us say what was the point of having army chiefs as important characters if they didn’t have any goal beside making the task complicated for the main cast.

Furthermore there is the constant problem of not killing a long time running character, despite countless occasions to do it symbolically and for the legacy of the series. The finale makes this issue even more frustrating. Even when we thought that at least Eleven killed herself (for unclear reasons), a late reinterpretation from Mike destroyed it with a senseless theory that Eleven used another useless character to fake her death to go travel the world by herself. Some argue that Eleven represents childhood magic throughout the show, this gives a pretty sad message for a finale. These are just two of several flaws in the finale and even more in the rest of the season, a further testament to the disappointment.

To sum up, the finale is nothing new, nothing more than another season without a cliff hanger, it’s anticlimactic, lazy written and poor of the actual resolution spirit a series finale should get. Which is okay in the way that this is what Netflix has accustomed us to with its successful product. But here it meant something more, it was a pop culture pillar, a 42 months wait, and sadly for some of us it will always represent the end of our teenage hood.